By Pat Hickey, Reno Gazette Journal, November 7, 2024
There’s probably a ton of political columnists that found themselves in the place I was. In the case of the just-completed election, I had my notes and quotes all ready to let readers know that it would be nearly a week before we knew the outcome of the presidential race and a host of other down-ticket contests and ballot issues.
Forget about it. I crumpled up the draft and my supposed wisdom — and threw it away in the wastebasket. There’s no need for members of the national media to purchase those inflated Southwest Airlines plane tickets and hang out in Las Vegas and Reno waiting to see if Nevada’s late-arriving mail ballots will decide the fragile future of the republic.
The election was supposed to be a squeaker, too close to call. Many thought we wouldn’t know the outcome for days, or even weeks. How wrong the pollsters and the political information complex were, once again.
I had been planning to title my post-election prognosis in Memo from the Middle something like “America and Nevada, at the crossroads.” Even with the decisive outcome in the presidential race of Donald Trump defeating Kamala Harris, I still think the country stands at an historic crossroads — one that will have far-reaching consequences. As modern historian Noah Yuval Harari has written, “Every point in history is a crossroads. A single traveled road leads from the past to the present, but myriad paths fork off into the future.”
So, what paths do we go down next, and where do we go from here? It’s for a person like me to question, and for elected folks from both the winning and losing sides to answer after heeding the voice of the American electorate in order move the country in the fateful news ways the election called for.
There are, however, some clear lessons to be learned from this election — both for the political establishment, and for the established political press. First was the role independent nonpartisan voters played in the election outcome. Not only have nonpartisan voters in Nevada surpassed the voter registration numbers of both Democrats and Republicans, they were probably the deciding factor that sealed Donald Trump’s victory.
Jeremy Hughes is a Republican consultant who’s worked with Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo.
“Independent voters broke for President Trump,” Hughes said. “Despite some attempts by others to pigeonhole and figure out their votes based on age or race, these voters showed they aren’t bound by our preconceived notions of how they will vote. They are what their party label would describe: swing voters whose vote cannot be taken for granted but must be earned.”
The fact that nonpartisan voters in Nevada (many demographically younger) played the role they did also surprised many in the media. The state’s leading political pundit, Jon Ralston, publisher of The Nevada Independent, posted to X the day after the election that he was caught off-guard in his pre-election predictions that nonpartisans would favor Kamala Harris, saying, “These indies are not who we thought they were.”
Apparently, a lot of voters were not what Democrats imagined them to be. Trump’s strong Electoral College win and his winning of the popular vote as well has many Harris supporters scratching their heads — and as is usually the case in political losses, looking for those to blame.
This election, pocketbook issues like the economy and the worrisome uncontrolled border were what catapulted Donald Trump to the most staggering political comeback in American history. The genius of America’s founders was to leverage the power of the voting public against the entrenched power of a political establishment. Suddenly — out with the old, and in with the new. The checks on what political party’s power has resulted in a different balance.
But before any healing takes place, wounds need to be cleaned up. Former Florida Republican Congressman and MSNBC host “Morning Joe” Scarborough certainly has been no fan of Donald Trump. But in his post-election prognosis, Scarborough pointed out that Democrats may have overreached in their emphasis on cultural issues and identity politics. Talking about the transgender issue on his morning show, Scarborough lamented that “Democrats should be smarter on the women’s athletics thing — 85% of Americans oppose men transitioning after puberty (and) competing against women.”
If it’s true that one presidential campaign built a progressive bridge and agenda too far to the left, then it’s not surprising to me that Americans, in the numbers they did in this election, decided it was time to return more toward the middle.
Ever since I became a nonpartisan after becoming fed up with all the divisive rhetoric and the excesses of my old political party, I’ve concluded that most Americans are neither far-right, or far-left. Passionate ideologues on the more strident edges of both major political parties who fail to recognize this fact do so at their own peril. What all too frequently results are the never-ending political pendulum swings orchestrated by the voting electorate.
George H. W. Bush was not known for his great oratory skills, but he did say something striking after winning the presidency in 1988.
“A campaign,” he said, “is a disagreement, and disagreements divide, but an election is a decision, and decisions clear the way for harmony and peace.” Let’s hope both the victors and the vanquished realize this in order that there may be less partisan rancor and more domestic tranquility going forward after the 2024 election.
The lessons I hope we learn from this historic election:
To Donald Trump and Republicans: Don’t be arrogant. Be understanding. Almost half of the country didn’t vote for you. Even with your current majorities, work with Democrats to craft policies that won’t be overturned the next time the country’s mood changes. Be respectful. As Democrat Fox News pundit Harold Ford said on election night: “If you want to fly as a great country — you had better have both political wings working together.” Don’t go too far to the right. Eventually, you’re going to need both “wings” to navigate the ship of state when a crisis hits.
To the Democrats in Congress and elsewhere: Learn from the reasons why you lost. Maybe you did tilt too far to the left. Be graceful in defeat — more lessons are gained from that response than blame and recriminations. A thought from the Dalai Lama might help: “When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways — either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find inner strength.” America needs you to heal yourselves — even if it means you have to change some things about yourself in order to do so.
America and Nevada are at a crossroads. U.S. poet laureate Robert Frost gave us the soundest of advice when faced with what with path to take when we are faced with a difficult choice: “Two roads diverged … and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
The road less traveled for Americans on both sides of the political spectrum would be to go down the path of a new bipartisanship and cooperation. It could make all the difference if we do, or if we don’t.
Your thoughts? Email me at [email protected].
“Memo from the Middle” is an opinion column written by RGJ columnist Pat Hickey, a member of the Nevada Legislature from 1996 to 2016.